In a city not far from me there is a radio talk show host who happens to be black.  I knew that before I saw him interviewed on television not from his voice but because he seems to have a problem with it, as if being black was a handicap beyond anything experienced by anyone else in the world.  He seems to be of above average intelligence, is well spoken and articulate, and I take him to be successful in his industry and respected by the community (he certainly is more successful in radio than I was); but from time to time he makes statements that betray a complete lack of any understanding of the similarities between the lives of others and those of his race.

  There was an outstanding example of this a few years ago, when he was responding to the suggestion that European immigrants faced the same kinds of discrimination in their day that blacks have at times faced.  His statement was, “I really don’t consider it discrimination if all you had to do to avoid it was change your name.”  He somehow thought that all European immigrants would look the same as Americans of European descent, and could only be distinguished by their names.

  This is patently false to the point of foolish.  Overlooking the fact that “they all look the same to me” is horribly prejudiced, something to which you would expect victims of discrimination would be particularly sensitive, it fails to recognize that there are nuances of cultural difference that are inescapable by those raised in a particular environment.  The early twentieth century still had much of such discrimination, an age in which expressions like, “But what is a Swede but a Norwegian with his brains knocked out?” were not merely common but ardently believed.  Dr. J. Edwin Orr reports that when he, an Irish evangelist, proposed in the 1930’s to marry a Swedish telephone operator, both Irish and Swedish friends were against such an “interracial” marriage, as their temperaments would be almost certainly incompatible.

  It was on his first visit to England that an English lorry driver said to this same Irish Dr. Orr, “I knew you were a foreigner as soon as you opened your mouth.”  Some people are quite skilled at identifying where people are from by their accents.  The way we talk, the way we dress, the way we move all distinguish us as products of our culture.  We cannot easily escape this; it identifies us with who we are.

  This is not a new fact.  There is a tale told millennia ago, in the twelfth chapter of a book called Judges, in which just such a cultural nuance meant life or death for certain people.  The men of Gilead were furious with the men of Ephraim, because the latter not only did not come to their aid when they had to fight the army of Ammon but stood against them.  The Gileadites captured and held the fords of the Jordan River, and questioned those who tried to cross.  The test was simple:  say Shibboleth.  That initial fricative was not a phoneme familiar to the men of Ephraim, who would say Sibboleth, thus revealing their identities and subjecting them to punishment.  Ephraimites might look the same as Gileadites, and they might dress the same and speak the same language, but they couldn’t fake the accent, and it cost them their lives.

  There are those among us who are exceptionally good at such things.  Some can pick up the preferred local pronunciation and usage within a few days, possibly a few hours, by carefully listening to what is said and how it is said by those around them.  Others are finely attuned to dress and attire, noting that earrings mean something depending on the ear in which they appear, or that only certain categories of people are allowed to wear purple.  Still others take note of body language, such as how close these people stand to each other when they talk, and in what ways they use their hands as they do so.  Very few people can do all of those things, although some who cannot always spot the important points can still duplicate them if someone calls attention to them.  Faking a cultural identity requires tremendous acting skill; even then, it’s easy to be tripped up by the cultural information base, the things that anyone from around here would know which aren’t known elsewhere, even if it’s only the best place to eat or the name of the beloved king who died ten years ago.

  Of course, cultures diversify; even in the same place, there will be some things that are known to some people and not to others.  My brother Roy tells a story of attending a computer technology show years ago and seeing what was then one of the latest innovations in surge protection.  Asking the technical representative how it works, he got this explanation.  “The power surge comes in here, and it goes around and around and around”–to which Roy responded, “And it comes out where?”  Although his companion nearly fell on the ground from laughter, the representative, seemingly oblivious, repeated, “No, it goes around and around and around.”  As Roy later said, you’d think that even if the guy didn’t know Louis Armstrong he’d have to remember Bugs Bunny.  We don’t all know all things about our own cultures; or rather, we are all members of cultures within cultures, sharing some things in common with all but identified as much by that which we don’t know as by that which we know.

  Adventurers tend to adventure; they tend to travel, to go where the adventures are.  That means they are already people out of place.  It will take time, wherever they are, to adjust to the culture around them; and no matter how good they are at this, they will almost certainly always be recognizable as foreigners.  This will at times work against them.  At times they won’t understand the local customs, whether accepting the bread offered by the young girl promises something the character didn’t intend, or giving the beggar money instead of food obliges the man to do something in return, or just how bargains are sealed between businessmen.  It may also mark them as people who don’t know their way around and have no connections, people whom the police are not likely to take seriously, tourists who can be cheated today because they will be gone in a week.  Those are minor aspects.  If a character has to say Shibboleth–or Mlambo, or Qorani (with a click)–on pain of death, will he be able to pass the culture test?

  Next week, something different.

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M. Joseph Young is co-author of Multiverser and Vice President for Development at Valdron Inc.  His many contributions to online literature are indexed for convenience, and he looks forward to discussing these things by e-mail or on our Gaming Outpost forums.